Lost Youth
by I s i s3
Summary: Faith is shot protecting Wesley and a new Slayer is called.
1. Drowning

  
  
Drowning  
  
From the time she entered the desolate warehouse it was as if time slowed down. She heard the irregular, staccato beat of her heart like background music to an old horror movie, detached from her own body. Her movements seemed sluggish, as if she was wading through shoulder-deep water. Her limbs moved involuntarily, her scuffed sneakers padding cautiously through the shallow pools of water collected on the uneven cement floor.  
  
She jumped a fraction of an inch when her hand came into contact with her face, brushing her matted, dripping hair from her eyes. Her previously glorious, almost defiant tresses were plastered to her skin by the rain, which leaked through the creaking warehouse ceiling, and pounded the dirt-stained streets outside like a death knell. She only hoped it wasn't her own.  
  
The atmosphere seemed completely still and undisturbed by any recent signs of life. She finally decided to make her presence known and called out for the people she was looking for, called for someone, anyone. She would rather be faced with a threat than just stand here, drowning in uncertainty. Her voice seemed to come from a very distant place; the words reaching her ears many moments after her lips uttered them.  
  
She was beginning to think that her difficult journey here had been for nothing and even considered leaving, but immediately swallowed her cowardice. She at least owed him this. She couldn't back out now.  
  
Her lungs inhaled a shaky breath of stale air and her limp hands clenched into fists by her sides. She willed her unnaturally keen senses, unshakeable attitude and combat experience into operation. Her nervousness fed the seeds of unease in her that were already winding their way around her stomach. The main reason for this was that she didn't know why she was so worried. She had faced far greater threats that this ambiguous evil she had come here to fight. The demons that lurked in the depths of her own being instilled more terror within her than anyone, mortal or otherwise, could.  
  
Despite her reassurances, she sensed an ominous foreboding in the still, damp air. She couldn't remove the thick metallic taste of anxiety from the back of her throat.  
  
Finally she saw the vague outline of two figures in the darkness, the first of which was standing next to the crumpled, tied-up form of the second man. Then she focused on the dangerous glint of the revolver, held by the standing man in the dim light.  
  
Her previous doubts fled from her body like electricity rushing to ground. An ancient and familiar current coursed through her that both thrilled and frightened her as muscles tensed for battle.  
  
The events of the next few minutes, despite their importance, flashed by in a sequence of disjointed images and sensations. The rush of air past her face as she leapt forward. Her satisfaction as she threw the armed man to the floor and his gun out of reach. Her distraction as something came crashing through the wall of the warehouse. Her shock as the assailant pulled a concealed weapon from his coat. The unearthly sound of thunder combined with gunshot. And the lancing pain in her chest as the strangely warm bullet bit into her flesh....  
  
  
  
As the other feelings died around her, anger, shock, pain, Faith concentrated on the solid floor pressing against her back to prevent fear completely consuming her. Then, as the final darkness engulfed her, she felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her body...  



	2. Isobel

  
  
Isobel  
  
  
She felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her body. Isobel leapt from the bed in one frantic motion.  
"Shit!" she hissed through clenched teeth as a dozen sharp-edged lego pieces cluttering the floor dug into the tender flesh in the arches of her feet. She brushed the offending plastic cubes from the skin of her soles and stood straight to survey the room. The young girl's whole body swayed with the deep breaths she sucked through her lips as her feral glare darted across every piece of furniture, every shadow cast by the street lamps outside.  
  
The air around her felt thick and hot, clinging to her skin and filling her throat. Energy seemed to course through her body, causing blood to rush through her veins like waves, rising to the surface of her pale cheeks. Every molecule in her body vibrated and a strange sense of power thrummed across her temples. She felt as if she were being used as a circuit and a current was passing through her bones, her folicles standing on end, sweat beading her hairline.  
  
She knew no explaination for the strange surge that had woken her earlier, and yet she still felt electricity crackle along her palms as own as she paced to the murky window, slim, shaking fingers pulling her cotton night shirt from her clammy midriff. She pressed her hot forehead to the glass and let out a puff of warm breath. Long, dark lashes brushing against the window as her eye lids fluttered.  
  
She knew she'd been having a nightmare before she had been so rudely awakened. However the memories were quickly slipping away from her, the heat she felt impaired her thought processes just as the darkness obscured her vision. Red, an emotionally detached voice in her head supplied. Blood. Lots of blood, Isobel remembered. A dark-haired girl, maybe her age, maybe older, slowly falling towards the ground. The glint of a gun. The expression of the man pulling the trigger.  
  
She shook her head as if to physically remove the morbid thoughts from her mind as she wandered from the window to the crooked mirror to contemplate her reflection. Her thick titan hair had worked itself into an unruly mop while she slept and mascara had smudged beneath her lower lashes. To all outward apperances she was an ordinary 16 year old girl. However to the more trained eye, or those who bothered to look close enough, would notice the slight lines developing at the corners of her eyes. Cool blue irises which once easily portrayed amusement and youthful inteligence had grown hard and now only expressed a faint disgust with the image they scrutinized.  
  
She turned again to look over the sparse, beaten-up room. The creme de la creme of orphanage accomodation, courtesy of social services she thought humourlessly. She was still infamiliar with her new room but it didn't matter, she wouldn't be staying long. Suddenly a small shape caught her eye. The twin shadows of the two compact rucksacks caught her gaze.  
  
As the first tongues of sunlight licked the horizon, Isobel balled her small hands into fists and steeled herself for the day ahead. 


	3. Waiting

  
Waiting...  
  
He didn't understand why people were so scared of hospitals. They should have seen the medical procedures from a couple of centuries ago, now *that* was something to be afraid of.  
  
However beneath the pristine cleanliness and forced pleasantries of the staff lay an edge of morbidity. The bleakness of the stark white waiting area where he stood alone conveyed better the worry and fear of all those people who had waited here before him, hoping for some news of their loved ones from the I.C.U.  
  
Even with his Zen patience he was starting to get irritated. After an hour of sitting on the flimsy, plastic chairs he had stood up and begun to pace back and forth in front of the hospital's garish vending machines, out of place in their brightness. He knew he should go and find Cordelia or Gunn but he couldn't risk leaving in case there was news.  
  
He had finally settled at the edge of the waiting area, looking at the tastefully decorated reception at the end of the hall. He watched the small, skeleton staff of doctors and various other hospital workers, hurrying in and out of rooms or with their heads buried in charts. Other than that he was the only other person here, even in a large hospital like this, in a city like LA, Tuesday nights were pretty slow. He checked his watch for the hundredth time in the last 30 minutes. 2 am, still a few hours till sunrise.  
  
The smell of human blood smeared down the front of his shirt and on his palms, imperceptible to most, was starting to drive him to distraction. Despite this he had refused to change clothes or even wash his hands. And despite the quietness of the corridor he was pretty sure that in a makeshift operating room down the hall there would be half the staff from this branch of the hospital, working to replace the leaking fluids from that he'd heard two excited med. students describe as "the best case of the night!" One of the waiting room's now splintered chairs showed the evidence of his attempt to restrain the impulse to relocate the young mens' mouths to the other side of their faces.   
  
His minds eye once again returned to the image of doctors barking orders to nurses and orderlies over a body rapidly bleeding out onto the linoleum. Or maybe they had already called it...  
  
Shaking himself to physically remove the thoughts from his mind as he turned around and almost banged into Cordelia and a young female doctor.  
  
"Angel! I've been looking for you all over," Cordelia exclaimed. "Gunn's waiting in triage, you wouldn't believe how long we've..." she trailed off, seeing his sombre expression, realising maybe this wasn't the time of the place for complaining.  
  
"How are you doing?" Angel asked, his gruff tone softening. She reached up, subconsciously rubbing the single suture over the shallow gash in her otherwise flawless face.  
  
"Not too bad," the brunette replied. "But note to self, if you ever drive through a warehouse wall in a convertible, remember to have the hood up."  
  
He remembered the wooded shrapnel that had showered Cordelia and Gunn who had been sitting in the back seat of Angel's old Mercury when they had careened into the old building and smiled apologetically.  
  
"Ummm, excuse me," the young female doctor's weary voice filtered into their conversation. She paused to check her chart, "Did you come here with a... Wesley Whyndam-Price?"  
  
The two of them nodded and leaned forward expectantly. Cordelia knotted her fingers nervously in front of her, "How is he?"  
  
"Well, Mr Price suffered quite a bit of blood loss. He has been beaten quite badly and one of his arms was fractured. From the circular contusions around his wrists it would appear he was tied up..." the doctor said suspiciously.  
  
Angel spoke quickly before Cordelia could. "We found him in the street a few blocks from his apartment," he lied, "we didn't recognise him at first. We have no idea who did this to him or why." Well he wasn't lying about the why part. And although they weren't sure who the man who kidnapped Wesley was exactly, they knew *where* he was. During a struggle with Angel for the handgun the assailant had been carrying the gun had went off accidentally. The man was left where he fell, they had more important things to worry about than *his* safety.  
  
"We have bound his injured arm," the doctor continued, "and given him a script for painkillers. Other than that he can do nothing else but rest at home, we see no reason to detain him further." This was when she paused. She looked down at her soft-soled trainers, obviously not accustomed to giving out this kind of news. "Ms. Mancini on the other hand..." the doctor fixed Angel with a sympathetic gaze, sensing he'd be the one hardest hit by what she had to say. "She suffered massive cardio-vascular trauma. Her heart stopped while we were working on her and we could barely get enough O-neg into her to keep up with the bleeding."  
  
Cordelia deflated visibly, from both guilt and shock. Guilt because she didn't like 'Ms. Mancini' very much, and shock because in her concern for Wesley she'd completely forgotten about the girl who's life hung by a thread. The girl even younger than she was.  
  
The doctor took a breath before continuing. "It's through the grace of God that she's still alive, realistically she should be dead..." Realising her words weren't the most comforting she started again. "We've cleared an OR for her upstairs and there'll be some orderlies coming to get her in a few minutes. However you can see her if you wish, but only for a short while," the young doctor stressed.  
  
Angel read in her eyes what she hadn't said through her lips. 'Because she isn't going to survive the procedure'. That was why they were allowing him to see the her. This was unusual, as under normal circumstances they would have taken a patient into the OR immediately. But they wanted to let her next of kin see her while she was still hanging on. It made him infinitely regretful that he was the closest thing to family she had, but he had let him know in her own way how much she appreciated their all too seldom chats.  
  
The doctor left as quietly as she had arrived, her expression on of silent sympathy. Cordelia stood beside him, her expression stuck in a frown of disbelief. The doctor's movement jolted her back to reality and, unsure what to so, stared at a point somewhere past Angel's shoulder.  
  
She took a step forward without saying anything and touched her hand to his arm in a gesture of sorrow. "I'll go see how Wesley's doing," she half whispered in the again empty hallway. And with something resembling a comforting smile she turned around and walked back in the direction from where she'd came.  
  
*****  
  
"So English, you beat me again. What is it now, 5 to 1? What, you plannin' on card playin' for the Olympics or something?"  
  
Cordelia heard Gunn's deep voice filter down through the corridor before she actually entered the hospital room, suprised he had found Wes so quickly. Stepping cautiously over the threshold she walked over to the bedside, flashing Gunn and the bed-ridden Wesley a quick, uncomfortable smile.  
  
  
"Did you find him?" Gunn asked, shuffling and dealing the playing cards in his hands in preparation for another thrashing at his friend's hands.  
  
"Yeah, Angel's waiting in the I.C.U. for news," she answered, attempting to distract herself by tiding up the items that lay on the nearby table.  
  
Finally Wesley joined the conversation. "Well, what did he say?" his clipped British accent slightly rough with discomfort.  
  
"Gunn," Cordelia turned to their companion, "why don't you put those cards away? I'm sure Wes wants his rest."  
  
Gunn's brow furrowed. Not at the prim request but her none too subtle attempt to avoid Wesley's question. She finally risked a glance at the two men and immediately regretted the decision. Gunn hadn't been the only one to pick up on her aversion. Wesley's mouth hung slack, his eyes to cloudy orbs of unfathomable guilt and horror...  
  
"She didn't make it, did she?"  
  
*****  
  
It was the longest walk Angel had ever had to take in his life, but somehow he wished it was longer. Somewhere his brain registered the loud thud of his feet on the hospital linoleum. Pounding like morbid background music, like a reckoning. Rounding the corner of the doorway he immediately pinned his eyes to the pale wall opposite the small bed, unwilling to look anywhere else. The only thing that enabled him to even enter the room was the fact that, with the aid of the respirator, she was still tenaciously clinging to life by her fingertips. Anyway, he knew what he would see after all. The surprisingly slight figure of a girl who, when awake, always appeared larger than life. The slight figure of a girl, beaten and bleeding, her flawless skin marred by the effects of such a tragic life, fatal wounds and doctors' equipment.  
  
He walked to the foot of the bed, still avoiding looking at her face and picked up the patient's chart.   
  
'Gunshot wound to the chest  
03/08/01  
Mancini, Faith S.'  
  
  
  
  



	4. Letting Go

  
Giving up, Letting go...  
  
  
From the moment Isobel stepped off the bus with an air of affected confidence she started to survey the quiet street. Twin rows of attatched Victorian houses lined up on either side of the road, watched by cobbles that peeked through the worn tarmac.  
  
Her intense gaze settled on an old, black convertible parked on the curb opposite. It was too old to have an alarm she supposed, but even still she had prepared for that eventuality. Her grey-blue eyes narrowed as she felt the cold steel implement press against her arm under the sleeve of her scuffed leather jacket, reassuring despite the stinging sharpness of it's edge as it was pushed against her delicate skin.  
  
Next she checked the street for police officers. When she saw none she checked for any donut shops. After all, you could never be too careful.  
  
  
Isobel walked slowly up to the car, cautiously looking over each shoulder. She stopped next to the driver's door, standing close so no-one could see what she was doing. Certainly she removed the thin ruler-like object from within her sleeve and with unshaking hands pressed it against the window. It slipped between the glass and plastic guard with suprising ease and with a quick manouver she hooked it under the locking mechanism and pulled it open with a dull clunk. Her breath steamed against the window as the lock button popped up on the inside of the car door.  
  
Casually she slipped the implement back into her sleeve, a small hand closing around the cool door handle opening the door and throwing the larger of the two backpacks she carried past the driver's seat into the back of the car.  
  
Slamming the door shut, Isobel turned purposfully to face the opposite side of the street and rested against the car for a moment, blowing a puff of air through chapped lips. Unruly strands of hair that escaped her clumsy braid fell around her face as she studied the address hastily scribbled on the palm of her hand.  
  
"St Peter's Street," she muttered to the rust-encrusted street sign. "This must be the place."  
  
Isobel started an easy jog across the road and up onto the pavement, hitching the small rucksack up on her shoulder. She slowed when she reached the end the row of houses and reached the worn stone steps leading up to the front doors of the last two which had been turned into a child care home.  
  
It hardly looked like the stereotypical orphanage, with torn curtains, stern carers and small, soulfully eyed children staring from the windows. Even the rays of sunlight breaking through the clouds and the clourfully designed nameplate on the door betrayed the image of sadness and hardship that should have clung to the building, permeating the air around it.  
  
Slightly unsettled by the unexpected appearance of the home, she stumbled away from the front of the house before someone saw her and recognised her face. Isobel rounded the corner of the building and almost walked into the plastic coated metal lattice of the fence separating the orphanage's garden from the street to keep the children safe. She crouched on her knees in the mud at the base of the fence, ignoring the wetness that seeped through her jeans. Working quickly she secured slim, well-worn fingers around the iron peg fixing the lattice into the ground. Bracing her feet against the soft earth she prepared to put all her strength into removing the peg from the earth. With only a little effort it slid out of the soil with a sickening pop and in doind so, slipped out of her mud-slicked fingers and flew into the air, almost knocking Isobel unconcious.  
  
She hardly heard it hit the ground as she stared in awe at the unfamiliar strength in her hand, watching the tendons strain across her knuckles as she flexed her fingers. Isobel was suddenly snapped out of her reverie by a passing car, and quickly moved her foot to give the impression she'd stopped to tie her shoelace. When the car has dissapeared she easily rolled up the wire of the fence just enough to slip her slight frame underneath. She hissed through bared teeth as strands of firey hair caught in the wire lattice, and as her jacket hitched up the sharp metal wires of the fence bit into her bare back.  
  
Next her jeans became caught in the fence and almost slipped over her angular hips. The strain of her everyday life had begun to show on her figure a long time ago. She hadn't eaten a decent meal or had an uninterrupted nights sleep in almost 3 years. Interrupted by frequent nightmares. A broken body at the foot of the stair, a crying baby, a sadistic glint in His eye, the glint of a knife. Interrupted by a needy child, her younger sister Susie. Their mother had died when Susie was barely a month old, and despite living with their grandmother, Isobel was the only real mother Susie had ever known. And Susie was the reason Isobel got up every day and played the lousy hand life had dealt her.  
  
That was why she was on her belly, slicked in mud, bleeding and bruised, trying to piece together the remains of her shattered family. She was going to get her sister and go as far away as possible, where the God-damned social services would never bother them again.  
  
She untangled herself from the fence, wasting no time in dashing over to the house's wall and hidding in the shadow of the three story building. Back pressed against the bricks, she edged closer to the sound of lively games and childish laughter. Peering cautiously from her hidding place, Isobel broke into a smile as she spotted the familiar fire-engine red of Susie's hair amongst a gaggle of raucious youngsters. It had been tied back carefully into twin scalp plaits on either side of her head. She smile faded as she remembered her sister's regular whining that Isobel couldn't style her hair poperly. It appeared that these people could look after her sibling better than she did. Susie looked more happy and carefree than she had ever seen her, as if the memory of her troubled life had fallen away. Isobel often felt guilty for the childhood she could never give her sister, every second actually. But her respite was that children should be with their families, almost anything was better than being put nto foster care with a family who had no idea who they were or how they needed to be looked after.  
  
Isobel clenched her jaw so tightly she felt as if the muscle was going to snap, while the scene played in front of her. She couldn't watch anymore, and as Susie planted a kiss on the cheek of one of the carers she turned away...  
  
  
***  
  
  
Louise Cowan laughed heartily as the newest girl to be brought to the temporary child care centre where she worked trapped her in the biggest bear hug her small arms could manage. It was fortunate that she was fitting in so well, she had heard the kid had, had a rough life.  
  
Louise's dark eyes quickly shot towards the secluded area in the shadow of the large house as she spotted a movement in the corner of her vision. Smiling reassuringly at the young children she rose to her feet and paced cautiously towards the direction of the movement. Adjusting to the darkness of this area of the garden she spotted at small, frayed, brightly-coloured backpack leaning against the wall. Her intrest pipqued Louise leaned closer to investigate the contents of the bag, unfastening the cheap plastic buckles. Small, well-worn t-shirts, trousers and a pair of trainers, presumably belonging to a very young girl were packed haphazardly inside.  
  
Intriqued, the young child carer surveyed the area for the owner of the bag, and in doing so noticed the fence at the edge of the lawn, damaged at the bottom. She knew no child could have accomplished that. Walking over to the fence she curled her fingers around the cool wire as she stared out onto the street.  
  
The slight figure of a young woman, silloutted against the light noon sun strode down the middle of the road. Her titian hair blew defiantly in the breeze, contrasting with the broken slope of her footsteps.  
  
Suddenly Louise's head snapped upwards as a freak bolt of lightening streaked accross the summer sky. And as Isobel drove away from the last of her family for the final time the heavens wept...  
  



End file.
